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Tuesday, 20 July 2010

"Today he's at Chelsea. Maybe there will be surprises before August 31. I haven't spoken to just anybody. The only contact I've had directly was with City."

"At his age I can no longer hide the financial aspect. The club that want Didier will have to meet the price."

Thierno Seydi – Didier Drogba’s agent

There are so many things wrong with this quote it is untrue - starting with ‘we can no longer hide the financial aspect’.

What, because money wasn’t an issue when he moved to Chelsea in 2004?? In fact I bet the financial aspect has been at the forefront of any of his £80,000 a week contract negotiations since then and the very reason agents are so involved in football.

Reading between the lines, and that is all I can do unfortunately, it seems like either City have contacted the players agent with a mega bucks offer or Seydi is fishing to see what he can find.

These agents claim to work in their players best interests, but that seems only incidental to lining their own pockets.

City are a gold mine and their ensuring rush has seen clubs and agents desperately courting their attention in order to claim a piece of their wealth.

Figures released last year revealed that almost £13million was spent by City on agents and middle men in 2009, the most in the division. What do these guys do to earn all their money? Apart from unsettle players by addling their brains with promises of riches?

Would Drogba do a good job at City? He almost certainly would. But I can’t help feeling any move would be driven by the agent sniffing profit rather than any desire to improve his client’s well being.

For example at 32 Drogba isn’t getting any younger and possibly has just three season’s left at the top – would he leave the current English Champions who are desperate to win Europe’s top prize for a season ( and possibly more) of Europa League football?

I don’t feel any move to City by Drogba makes footballing sense – Mancini and co are looking to build a team to dominate for years rather than expensive short term buys.

But given Mr Seydi’s comments it seems football isn’t high on his priorities.